Cleveland County coaches support elimination of pod system

The playoff football system for North Carolina high schools, with the exception of the 1A and 1AA classes, is doing away with the pods that had been widely criticized by coaches.

Cleveland County coaches and administrators alike cheered the move made at Thursday’s North Carolina High School Athletic Association winter board of directors meeting. Many felt the pod system created too many early-round rematches from the regular season and made for unbalanced brackets.

Clark Leonard

The playoff football system for North Carolina high schools, with the exception of the 1A and 1AA classes, is doing away with the pods that had been widely criticized by coaches.

Cleveland County coaches and administrators alike cheered the move made at Thursday’s North Carolina High School Athletic Association winter board of directors meeting. Many felt the pod system created too many early-round rematches from the regular season and made for unbalanced brackets.

Crest has faced four Big South 3A Conference opponents in the first two rounds over the past three seasons. That included a second-round matchup with county rival Kings Mountain in 2011, when four of the eight teams in that pod were from the Big South. Both of the Mountaineers' playoff games that season came against Big South opponents.

“It’s the right thing to do,” KM coach Greg Lloyd said. “It’s been a Big South tournament once you get in the playoffs.”

Burns coach Matt Beam wasn’t a fan of the system, either, which gave his team a rematch of the regular season against Asheville in the 2010 second round. He said the two schools didn’t want to keep playing in the regular season with a possible playoff contest looming against the same opponent.

His Bulldogs also faced South Mountain Athletic Conference foe Freedom in the 2012 third round, while Shelby opened the playoffs against Chase from the SMAC.

“I hate it for the kids. I know when I was playing, I enjoyed having the opportunity to play other teams,” Beam said. “They talk about travel, I always thought that was fun. We went to Franklin last year. That was great.”

The pods often created heavyweight matchups too early in most coaches’ estimation, with one example being Crest facing South Point in this season’s second round.

“Two state championship caliber teams meeting in the second round isn’t a good thing,” Lloyd said. “This will help with that.”

Charger athletic director and football assistant coach Guy Suttle noted such instances weren’t isolated, such as matchups between Kannapolis and Charlotte Catholic.

“I don’t think it was just unique for us,” Suttle said. “That situation was reoccurring all over the state.”

In Burns’ 3A bracket in 2012, the top four teams (East Henderson, Burns, Hickory and Freedom) were in the Bulldogs’ pod.

“The pod wasn’t fair to a team that had been successful during the regular season,” Beam said.

Suttle said the reasoning behind the pod system — eliminating some travel — had good intentions but unintended consequences.

Cleveland County Schools athletic director Jim Taylor said the pods didn’t do what they were designed to in that regard.

“It was not solving the geographical problem that it was designed to in 2A, 3A and 4A,” Taylor said.

Crest coach Mark Barnes said the change adopted Thursday is an important move away from frequent conference rematches in the postseason.

“That's just not what playoffs are about,” Barnes said. “You want to play people that you don't play during the year and judge your conference against other conferences.”